This article is great, it combines all of the info I have found, not only putting it into a well written article but adds info I had not found yet. I have struggled with type 2 and losing weight, starting an aggressive weight cardio plan in 2016 with an A1C level of 9.7%. Even after three months of an hour or more of weight lifting and 30-50 mins of hard hilly terrain bike riding, my bets A1C was 7.7% with lowering my carb count to the recommended range. After an injury caused me to have to stop many of the exercises for a bit my A1C went up to the 9% range. July this year my A1C was 9.9% and my Dr was talking about insulin shots, which I hate needles. One last ditch effort to find a solution and avoid the shots, I found an article about the benefits of intermittent fasting. I did a lot of research on the matter before creating my own version of a Keto diet, and went on a strict diet of 5-8 servings of green leafy vegetables a day, around 45g of carbs a day, 3oz of lean or healthy fat protein a meal and fasting for 18 hours between Dinner till lunch the next day for two and a half months. My A1C was 6.5, I lost 20lbs, and have tons of energy and no cravings. I have altered my diet to fit my new exercise plan, still 5-8 servings of vegetables a day, but have added occasional breakfasts of two eggs and 1/2 cup salsa, no more than 100g of carbs a day except my once a week cheat day that might go slightly higher if my blood sugar is in a good range, 6oz lean healthy fat protein, and a hard boiled egg in between meals.

And when I talk about reducing certain carbohydrates, I mainly mean reducing your intake of refined carbohydrates such as pasta, rice and bread. Non starchy vegetables (such as broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower) are fine and can be eaten in abundance. Many fruits are packed with carbohydrates, so if you’re trying to reduce your carb intake, try and limit your intake to low-carb fruit, such as rhubarb, watermelon, berries, peaches and blackberries.
Blood sugar level is measured by means of a glucose meter, with the result either in mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter in the US) or mmol/L (millimoles per litre in Canada and Eastern Europe) of blood. The average normal person has an average fasting glucose level of 4.5 mmol/L (81 mg/dL), with a lows of down to 2.5 and up to 5.4 mmol/L (65 to 98 mg/dL).[7]
Unfortunately, most people are not given the benefit of this approach. When diagnosed with diabetes, most people are told to avoid sugar (good step, not the solution). If the problem is bad enough, they are told to take medication to give the body insulin. The problem is, as we saw above, diabetes is a problem with the body’s regulation of insulin, caused by a resistance to insulin and an overproduction to remove toxic amounts of glucose in the bloodstream. Insulin is also dangerous if it is left circulating the the blood. Somehow, treating too much circulating glucose and insulin with more insulin doesn’t seem like the right approach…
Following these five principles can significantly influence blood glucose levels. However, not everyone responds the same. Some people with have immediate low blood glucose levels. Others may experience a slow and steady improvement of glucose control. Some may have temporary high glucose levels. Our experience is that this is transient and most people will improve.
Besides going raw and eliminating sugar out of your life, you must switch to raw milk or its alternatives. In the book, The Devil in the Milk, Dr. Kevin Woodford explains how the type of milk we drink, directly reflects of the high incidence of many diseases, including diabetes and cancers. There are many substitutes available from almond milk to oat milk. They are extremely healthy and easy to make.
Fix your Gut– Not the beer gut, your intestines. Grains and toxins cause damage to the intestinal lining and facilitate leaky gut syndrome. Depleted beneficial bacteria in the gut caused by poor diet, antibiotic use or being bottle fed as a baby can make the problem worse. Remove the grains, avoid toxins whenever possible and take a high quality probiotic to help the intestines heal. As a note: some people will have continued damage to the gut with exposure to grains, especially gluten, as little as only every 10 days or even every 6 months.
Unfortunately, most people are not given the benefit of this approach. When diagnosed with diabetes, most people are told to avoid sugar (good step, not the solution). If the problem is bad enough, they are told to take medication to give the body insulin. The problem is, as we saw above, diabetes is a problem with the body’s regulation of insulin, caused by a resistance to insulin and an overproduction to remove toxic amounts of glucose in the bloodstream. Insulin is also dangerous if it is left circulating the the blood. Somehow, treating too much circulating glucose and insulin with more insulin doesn’t seem like the right approach…

Poor glycemic control refers to persistently elevated blood glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin levels, which may range from 200–500 mg/dl (11–28 mmol/L) and 9–15% or higher over months and years before severe complications occur. Meta-analysis of large studies done on the effects of tight vs. conventional, or more relaxed, glycemic control in type 2 diabetics have failed to demonstrate a difference in all-cause cardiovascular death, non-fatal stroke, or limb amputation, but decreased the risk of nonfatal heart attack by 15%. Additionally, tight glucose control decreased the risk of progression of retinopathy and nephropathy, and decreased the incidence peripheral neuropathy, but increased the risk of hypoglycemia 2.4 times.[21]

In a person with carbohydrate intolerance, type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, this system breaks down. The body loses its insulin sensitivity and more and more insulin is required to remove the excess blood sugar. As a result, blood sugar levels remain high and insulin levels are high as well, and these high insulin levels can make your body even less sensitive to insulin.

Hyperglycemic hyperosmolar nonketotic syndrome (HHNS). Signs and symptoms of this life-threatening condition include a blood sugar reading higher than 600 mg/dL (33.3 mmol/L), dry mouth, extreme thirst, fever greater than 101 F (38 C), drowsiness, confusion, vision loss, hallucinations and dark urine. Your blood sugar monitor may not be able to give you an exact reading at such high levels and may instead just read "high."
A further danger of insulin treatment is that while diabetic microangiopathy is usually explained as the result of hyperglycemia, studies in rats indicate that the higher than normal level of insulin diabetics inject to control their hyperglycemia may itself promote small blood vessel disease.[14] While there is no clear evidence that controlling hyperglycemia reduces diabetic macrovascular and cardiovascular disease, there are indications that intensive efforts to normalize blood glucose levels may worsen cardiovascular and cause diabetic mortality.[42]
However, the alternate term “reversed” often being used, may confuse people and mistake the good control of diabetes (remission) as a complete cure. Unfortunately, there is no current long term cure yet, and if one had gained back the weight they had lost or went back to old lifestyle habits, Type 2 diabetes would come back and sign and symptoms would present.
Dr. Sivitz emphasizes the importance of being active, eating a healthy diet, and having a good understanding of the role that carbohydrates play. He recommends eating healthy carbs, such as nonstarchy vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, and nonfat dairy products. A certified diabetes educator or a registered dietitian can help personalize your diet and teach you strategies to control your blood sugar. Depending on your desired blood sugar range and weight loss goals, recommendations for foods, carbohydrate intake, and portion sizes may vary. Regardless, if you have diabetes, it will be important to count carbs in your diet because, while not off limits, they can lead to blood sugar spikes when overeaten.

It’s astounding to read that this blog promotes eating salami, sausage, and bacon which the World Health Organization has designated all three a Class 2 carcinogen. While most of the information that you shared on this topic may help diabetic patients and those who are pre-diabetic, it’s important to look at these diets as to not only the type of fat but the quality of the fat and how processed they are; only then can we understand that there are two separate kinds of carbs, there are two separate kinds of fats, and those are fats and carbs that are processed. When you have processed fats and processed carbs, the rate of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer rates skyrocket. So it’s not just fats that we should consider eating or carbs that we should consider, it’s the kinds of fats and the kinds of carbs that should be scrutinized thoroughly to get a better understanding of exactly what is healthy for the diet for people both young and old.

If you'd like some proof that diabetes is a disease you can live well with, consider the accomplishments of these prolific people with diabetes: jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie, singer Ella Fitzgerald, actress Mary Tyler Moore, and baseball Hall-of-Famer Jim "Catfish" Hunter. Even before treatment was as sophisticated as it is today, author Ernest Hemingway and inventor Thomas Edison, both of whom had diabetes, managed to leave their marks on the world.
The earliest predictor of the development of type 2 diabetes is low insulin sensitivity in skeletal muscle, but it is important to recognize that this is not a distinct abnormality but rather part of the wide range expressed in the population. Those people in whom diabetes will develop simply have insulin sensitivity, mainly in the lowest population quartile (29). In prediabetic individuals, raised plasma insulin levels compensate and allow normal plasma glucose control. However, because the process of de novo lipogenesis is stimulated by higher insulin levels (38), the scene is set for hepatic fat accumulation. Excess fat deposition in the liver is present before the onset of classical type 2 diabetes (43,74–76), and in established type 2 diabetes, liver fat is supranormal (20). When ultrasound rather than magnetic resonance imaging is used, only more-severe degrees of steatosis are detected, and the prevalence of fatty liver is underestimated, with estimates of 70% of people with type 2 diabetes as having a fatty liver (76). Nonetheless, the prognostic power of merely the presence of a fatty liver is impressive of predicting the onset of type 2 diabetes. A large study of individuals with normal glucose tolerance at baseline showed a very low 8-year incidence of type 2 diabetes if fatty liver had been excluded at baseline, whereas if present, the hazard ratio for diabetes was 5.5 (range 3.6–8.5) (74). In support of this finding, a temporal progression from weight gain to raised liver enzyme levels and onward to hypertriglyceridemia and then glucose intolerance has been demonstrated (77).

Diabetes is a group of diseases characterized by elevated blood glucose levels due to defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), type 2 diabetes usually begins with insulin resistance. For those people whose bodies resist insulin, the pancreas secretes extra insulin to maintain normal glucose levels. As the condition progresses, insulin production gradually decreases and eventually reaches a level of deficiency that can no longer maintain blood glucose in the normal range. But how type 2 diabetes presents and progresses can vary considerably, as noted by the ADA, and methods of treatment can vary from patient to patient.

Studies conducted in the United States[43] and Europe[44] showed that drivers with type 1 diabetes had twice as many collisions as their non-diabetic spouses, demonstrating the increased risk of driving collisions in the type 1 diabetes population. Diabetes can compromise driving safety in several ways. First, long-term complications of diabetes can interfere with the safe operation of a vehicle. For example, diabetic retinopathy (loss of peripheral vision or visual acuity), or peripheral neuropathy (loss of feeling in the feet) can impair a driver’s ability to read street signs, control the speed of the vehicle, apply appropriate pressure to the brakes, etc.
Jump up ^ Inzucchi, SE; Bergenstal, RM; Buse, JB; Diamant, M; Ferrannini, E; Nauck, M; Peters, AL; Tsapas, A; Wender, R; Matthews, DR (March 2015). "Management of hyperglycaemia in type 2 diabetes, 2015: a patient-centred approach. Update to a Position Statement of the American Diabetes Association and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes". Diabetologia. 58 (3): 429–42. doi:10.1007/s00125-014-3460-0. PMID 25583541.
Vitamin C may make up for low blood levels of insulin, which normally works to help cells absorb the vitamin. Proper amounts of vitamin C may help the body maintain a good cholesterol level and keep blood sugar levels under control. But too much can cause kidney stones and other problems. Check with your doctor to see if a vitamin C supplement is right for you.

I’ve done this for years and I do it each time I’m pregnant in place of the glucose test. It is a cheap and easy way to keep insulin levels in check and see how your body responds to certain foods. While I can offer general advice on the amount of carbohydrates that should be consumed, at home glucose monitoring allows you to know exactly what your body will and won’t handle.

Type 2 diabetes develops when the body cannot use insulin properly or make enough insulin, so the body cannot properly use or store glucose (a form of sugar) and sugar backs up into the bloodstream, raising blood sugar levels. In the United States, some 8.9 percent of adults 20 and older have been found to have diabetes, and health officials estimate that another 3.5 percent have undiagnosed diabetes.
Formal recommendations on how to reverse type 2 diabetes in clinical practice must await further studies. In the meantime, it will be helpful for all individuals with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes to know that they have a metabolic syndrome that is reversible. They should know that if it is not reversed, the consequences for future health and cost of life insurance are dire, although these serious adverse effects must be balanced against the difficulties and privations associated with a substantial and sustained change in eating patterns. For many people, this may prove to be too high a price to pay, but for those who are strongly motivated to escape from type 2 diabetes, the new understanding gives clear direction. Physicians need to accept that long-term weight loss is achievable for a worthwhile proportion of patients (96). In the United States, diabetes costs $174 billion annually (97), and in the United Kingdom, it accounts for 10% of National Health Service expenditure. Even if only a small proportion of patients with type 2 diabetes return to normal glucose control, the savings in disease burden and economic cost will be enormous.
As diabetes is a prime risk factor for cardiovascular disease, controlling other risk factors which may give rise to secondary conditions, as well as the diabetes itself, is one of the facets of diabetes management. Checking cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglyceride levels may indicate hyperlipoproteinemia, which may warrant treatment with hypolipidemic drugs. Checking the blood pressure and keeping it within strict limits (using diet and antihypertensive treatment) protects against the retinal, renal and cardiovascular complications of diabetes. Regular follow-up by a podiatrist or other foot health specialists is encouraged to prevent the development of diabetic foot. Annual eye exams are suggested to monitor for progression of diabetic retinopathy.
One of the most advanced alternatives comes from the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) in the US, which is developing a bioengineered mini-organ where insulin-producing cells are encapsulated within a protective barrier. Two years ago, the DRI announced that the first patient treated in an ongoing Phase I/II trial no longer requires insulin therapy.
I do not believe it can be an actual reversal, more of a remission. If no longer needing medication to control blood sugar looks like reversal it is only possible if the person maintains regular exercise and a healthy weight. The length of time one has diabetes plays a role as does one’s genes. There are some thin people who have type 2 diabetes due to heredity.
Even if making small gradual changes over time doesn’t cure you, you’ll feel so much better when you give your body what it needs and when you don’t burden it with what it doesn’t need. Whether you’re reducing your risk of developing diabetes or eliminating your need for medication, it’s worth incorporating worthwhile changes so you can be the best version of yourself.
If however, type 2 diabetes is a result of insulin resistance and being overweight, there is excellent evidence that exercise, decreasing added sugars and saturated fats in the diet, choosing low glycaemic index foods and losing weight – particularly around the abdominal region, can improve blood glucose levels to the extent that it seems like diabetes has been reversed.

Other medications such as metformin or the DPP4 drug class are weight neutral. While this won’t make things worse, they won’t make things better either. Since weight loss is the key to reversing type 2 diabetes, medications won’t make things better. Medications make blood sugars (the symptom) better, but not the diabetes (the actual disease). We’ve been pretending that the symptom is the disease.We can pretend the disease is better, but that doesn’t make it true. That’s the reason most doctors think type 2 diabetes a chronic and progressive disease. We’ve been using the wrong treatment. We’ve been prescribing drugs for a dietary disease. No wonder it doesn’t work.

An injection port has a short tube that you insert into the tissue beneath your skin. On the skin’s surface, an adhesive patch or dressing holds the port in place. You inject insulin through the port with a needle and syringe or an insulin pen. The port stays in place for a few days, and then you replace the port. With an injection port, you no longer puncture your skin for each shot—only when you apply a new port.
A popular spice used in Indian cooking, and the main ingredient of ‘curry’ that has taken the world by storm, turmeric has antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties that all come together to help diabetics manage more stable blood sugar levels. It helps boost immunity and prevent infections that diabetics are often vulnerable to. Studies conducted on rats prove that curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric, is effective in reducing plasma glucose level and HbA1C as well as improving the lipid profile. Many diabetics also suffer from arthritis, since the sugar laden blood and inflammatory processes typical to diabetes often damage joints. Turmeric, with its anti-inflammatory abilities, also helps with these joint pains.
Mr. Tutty, who weighed about 213 pounds before the trial, lost a little more than 30 pounds, the average weight loss in the trial. The people in the study most likely to respond to the treatment were in their early 50s on average and younger than the nonresponders, and they had had diabetes for fewer years. The responders were also healthier before the trial: They had been taking fewer medications than nonresponders, had lower fasting glucose and hemoglobin A1c before the trial, and had higher baseline serum insulin levels. Three of those who went into remission had lived with diabetes for more than eight years.
If however, type 2 diabetes is a result of insulin resistance and being overweight, there is excellent evidence that exercise, decreasing added sugars and saturated fats in the diet, choosing low glycaemic index foods and losing weight – particularly around the abdominal region, can improve blood glucose levels to the extent that it seems like diabetes has been reversed.
Most of those foods are refined, processed starches and sugars. Lots of diets place people on a restricted plan that doesn’t allow the refined, processed starches and sugars, and people lose weight, regain good BG control and feel better. However, in most cases, the weight comes back and weight creeps up and BG begins rising again due to the inability to sustain many of these diets.
When islet cells have been transplanted via the Edmonton protocol, insulin production (and glycemic control) was restored, but at the expense of continued immunosuppression drugs. Encapsulation of the islet cells in a protective coating has been developed to block the immune response to transplanted cells, which relieves the burden of immunosuppression and benefits the longevity of the transplant.[72]
Diabetes can be very complicated, and the physician needs to have as much information as possible to help the patient establish an effective management plan. Physicians may often experience data overload resulting from hundreds of blood-glucose readings, insulin dosages and other health factors occurring between regular office visits which must be deciphered during a relatively brief visit with the patient to determine patterns and establish or modify a treatment plan.[5]

This plant’s Hindi name translates as “sugar destroyer,” and the plant is said to reduce the ability to detect sweetness. It’s regarded as one of the most powerful herbs for blood-sugar control. It may work by boosting the activity of enzymes that help cells use glucose or by stimulating the production of insulin. Though it hasn’t been studied ­extensively, it’s not known to cause serious side effects. Try these healthy habits to prevent diabetes.

Drugs of this class decrease the absorption of carbohydrates from the intestine. Before being absorbed into the bloodstream, enzymes in the small intestine must break down carbohydrates into smaller sugar particles, such as glucose. One of the enzymes involved in breaking down carbohydrates is called alpha-glucosidase. By inhibiting this enzyme, carbohydrates are not broken down as efficiently, and glucose absorption is delayed.